Art on Tuesday: Gardens

On the left we have the “Flower Park and Dangozaka Slope in Sendagi” (千駄木団子坂花屋敷, Sendagi Dangozaka Hanayashiki) which shows a cherry orchard and the pavilion of the violet spring.

On the right it is the “View to the North from Asukayama” (飛鳥山北の眺望, Asukayama kita no chōbō), which is located in the Asukayama Park. Shôgun Tokugawa Yoshimune was fond of the garden, so he ordered to plant many cherry trees here. You can still visit this park today. Both woodblock prints are part of the “100 Famous Views of Edo” by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Art on Tuesday: Late Spring

These two woodblock prints are depicting the Hachiman Shrine in Ichigaya (市ヶ谷八幡) by Hiroshige II (left) and the banks of the Tama River with cherry blossoms by Hiroshige I (right). Both places are located in today’s Tokyo. These two pictures are also part of the series of “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo”.

The Hachiman Shrine dates back to 1479, erected by Ôta Dôkan to guard Edo against approaches from the West. It enshrines a deity of the Tsurugaoka Shrine of Kamakura. The Hachiman Shrine was destroyed and rebuilt and then moved from Kamakura to Edo. After WWII only the bronze torii of the shrine was still there, but the shrine was again rebuild in the 1960s. Today it is located about 200 metres from the subway station Ichigaya.

A channel of the Tama River, which flows through Tokyo, is a popular motif of several woodblock prints.

Art on Tuesday: Nippori

Spring scenes from the series “one hundred famous views of Edo” by Utagawa Hiroshige. The left ukiyo-e shows the temple garden in Nippori 日暮里寺院の林泉. The temple is called Shūshōin. On the right you see the Suwa bluff of Nippori 日暮里諏訪の台. The ukiyo-e series was made in the 1850s. Edo is the old name of Tokyo. All woodblock prints of this series present a different view of the metropolitan aera.